Islamabad, Nov 7 : US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W Patterson has asked Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice (retired) Qazi Muhammad Farooq to announce the schedule for general elections as soon as possible.

"I urged the CEC to announce the elections schedule as soon as possible to reassure the people of Pakistan and the international community that the government remains committed to holding the elections on schedule," she said after meeting the CEC.

Patterson later told CBSW News that the CEC "thinks they (elections) will go ahead on time, he is ready to proceed."

Commenting on Musharraf’s uniform issue, Patterson said that the US expected Musharraf to step down as Army Chief and begin his promised transition to civilian democratic rule.

"The US remains committed to supporting free, fair and credible elections in Pakistan," she added.

"The US has provided more than 26 million dollars in bilateral and multilateral programme assistance in Pakistan for voter education, political parties development, computerisation of the voters rolls, training of political poll watchers, and domestic and international election observation missions," she said.

Patterson said that the last 80,000 of the 430,000 transparent ballot boxes the US and the Japanese Government purchased for Pakistan elections would be delivered by December 9.

The Daily Times quoted her as saying that election observers would arrive in Pakistan on November 20. (ANI)